Was going to write something else today, but I was listening to the Don & Roma Wade morning show on WLS-AM and got a real insight on the lunatics who are running this particular asylum, that is, Illinois.
Illinois is facing a shortfall in paying current bills, and has a long-term unfunded debt of more than $30 BILLION. I guarantee a lot of that is in pensions for state employees, because the state of Illinois doesn't really do much else but re-build the highways around O'Hare every couple years and hire everyone's moron grandson for the State Police. (Had friend once who was busted for speeding in California. As he told me the story, he kinda laughed apprehensively and said, "They don't take pay-offs out there.You can even get in trouble for offering.")
Anyway, currently the state income tax is 3%. It was originally 2%, but has gone up 1% since the tax was instituted around 1970 or so. At any rate, our illustrious (and clueless) governor, Pat Quinn, has proposed raising income taxes to 5.25%. That's individual tax. Corporate tax rate, currently 4.8% would go up to 8.4%. That's a 75% increase for both. I guess they were too chicken shit to make it a flat out 100% and double the tax.
Oh, and the really fun part? No serious cuts in spending planned at all. None. In fact, apparently they were going to give state employees a raise and increase funding to education.
Well, it seems it's not working. They talked about it last week, and over the weekend, apparently many legislators have been bombarded non-stop with protests. Of course, the will of the people has very little influence on legislators in Illinois. They seem to go by the Chicago model. In Chicago, if you work for the city, you have to live in the city. Therefore, the whole Chicago economy is a weird kind of churn: the city pays money out, and it comes right back from the citizen-employees. Sort of like a commune.
And Chicago is no longer "the city that works," either. I'll guess safely that quite a bit of the state's debt is due to money that goes to Chicago. Somehow the city found money to create broad medians in all the nicer boulevards and plant them with things that wilt and die from exhaust fumes, but they never have money to fill the potholes or to build additional highways. And traffic in Chicago is a nightmare. I don't go into the city unless I get paid to.
Interesting about Chicago, too.... I grew up in a Chicago suburb. A very old Chicago suburb. The town actually has been ont he map nearly as long has Chicago has. Chicago has just grown to meet the border of the suburb where I grew up. And up until I was in my teens, there wasn't any major suburban sprawl. I remember driving with friends about 15 miles from the Chicago border, and you were in farmland.
But then something interesting happened. Mayor Daley I, that is Richard the First, as opposed to "Little Richie," who's only been mayor for about 20 years -- anyway, Richard the First had this brainstorm about taxes. Like, he didn't want to lay a new tax on ordinary citizens, that wouldn't be nice. So he laid a new tax on employers. Businesses in Chicago have to pay a poll tax on each employee.
Net result -- the suburbs mushroomed almost overnight. I currently live almost 50 miles north of Chicago, and many people who live here work in the city.
And not only bedroom communities. In fact, not bedroom communities at all. On the West side, towns like Oak Brook, where McDonald's is headquartered, one of many large corporations out there, flourished. Suddenly, everyone had to move out by O'Hare, which is connected to Chicago like a balloon on a stick -- it's all surrounded by non-Chicago suburbs.
Chicago gets none of that revenue.
So anyway, on Don & Roma on the radio this morning, they talked about the proposed tax. Said they'd been trying to contact state assembly people all weekend and they were all in hiding. They wouldn't talk to the media at all about the tax. But they did get one guy, who represents a district on the West Side of Chicago. They asked him what he thought about the tax.
He said, and I paraphrase, "We're all excited about it. It gives us a lot more money to spend."
Followed by an odd -- or stunned -- silence, when Roma, who's the kinder of the duo, said, "Good for you, maybe, but what about taxpayers?"
The legislator blew that off and just kept on talking about "helping his people." He said the state isn't getting as much from the feds as it used to, and the money's got to come from somewhere.
Newt Gingrich was a phone guest on the show about an hour later. Gingrich noted, "They won't have more more money to spend. Revenues will go down. People and corporations will move out of the state."
Yeah. True. I personally saw the exodus of businesses and people from Chicago during my lifetime. Now apparently we'll have to leave the state. I wouldn't mind. Illinois holds no charm for me. And this state has probably the most boring highways in the country. Nothing but corn in every direction. You see an overpass miles ahead and want to jump for joy for the break in the landscape.
Just wanted to share this, though. When I call politicians "blockheads," that's not an insult. It's as accurate a description I can come up with.
Save the Republic.
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